1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to debris collection in general and in particular to a method and apparatus for containing and collecting debris from a worksite surface produced by a working tool.
2. Description of Related Art
In construction or renovation, it is frequently necessary to cut, drill or core though walls formed of concrete, brick and other building materials. Such drilling and other material cutting operations are known to produce debris from the material upon which they operate. Such debris may be in the form of dust, chips and the like, or drilling fluid and suspended particles, also known as slurry when the tool operation is lubricated or cooled by a drilling or cutting fluid.
Such debris is undesirable in many locations such as indoors where dust may cause breathing difficulties for occupants. Additionally, liquid entrained drilling debris, or slurry, may be difficult to clean up after it has escaped the drilling area. Such liquid and dust may be damaging to the surrounding area as well as other equipment or objects.
One previous method to contain and remove the debris from the work location is to surround the work location with plastic or another impermeable material so as to collect the debris for disposal. Such methods typically tape or otherwise adhere a plastic sheet around the area for such purpose. These methods are disadvantageously time consuming and cumbersome to install at a given location due to the need to tape or adhere the entire periphery of the plastic sheet. Additionally, such methods are known to leak at locations not properly taped or where the surface to which they are adhered are uneven.
Another attempt to address the above difficulty has been to provide a shield or cover attached to the tool. Such a shield may have a vacuum source attached thereto so as to suction any debris from within the chamber formed by the shield. Disadvantageously, such shields are required to be attached to each tool before use and are therefore limited to a single tool use without time consuming adaptation or modification for use with different tools. The use of tool mounted shields may also require the shield and therefore the tool to remain in place after the tool operation has completed in order to continue removing debris from the work location which further increases the time required to perform the task that is to be performed by the tool. Examples of such shields may be found in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2007/0264091 to Bleicher et al.
Other devices have been proposed which define an area around the tool which contains the debris and in which the debris is removed therefrom by a vacuum or the like. Examples of such devices may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,983,445 to Baker. Such devices often require a means to secure the device to the work surface such as a separate vacuum source or dividing the debris removal vacuum source. Such division of a single vacuum source may reduce the effectiveness of the debris removal. Additionally, for use with wet tool operations such as concrete coring, the liquid debris or slurry may be prone to running down the works surface, such as a wall. Any liquid or slurry running down the wall may not be collected by such a device and may be permitted to escape between the wall and the device or pooled to be released when the device is removed from the wall.